Where does “404 Not Found” even come from?

Where does the 404 in 404 not found even come from? HTTP status codes were developed by Tim Berners-Lee and a team at CERN. And these codes that you see follow a numbering system. 2XX means success, 3XX means redirection, 4XX means the client did something wrong, 5XX means the server broke. And at the CERN headquarters, room 404 was where the original servers were located, which brought us to the 404 error. So, that's a lie. It's a popular theory online, but CERN said that it doesn't have any 404 rooms. 404 room not found? Whatever. The real answer is honestly kind of boring. The 4XX block was reserved for client errors, but what isn't boring is the cultural phenomenon that 404 became afterwards. Rather than a simple 404 text that is normal, companies would reroute to a web page that would have some sort of Easter egg, while still keeping the number 404 in there. So, for example, GitHub shows a Star Wars parallax scene. Pixar puts Sadness from Inside Out there. Blizzard shows in-game characters looking confused. It became a design opportunity to sprinkle in some fun to what might already be a boring concept, websites. A three-digit number from a 1996 technical spec turned into one of the most recognizable symbols and numbers on the internet. Pretty crazy if you think about it. Follow for more.